Principal Message

Rod Whelan

Hello everyone,

I am on leave for 4 weeks beginning next week. Christie Scoble will be Principal during this time and Shane Fuller will be Assistant Principal. From Week 5, for 3 weeks, Alison Sutton, Peter Hunt (seconded to CSO for 2018) and Kerry Mowett (CSO) will be on a study tour and conference in Finland that focuses on features of the Finnish education system, including leadership and school models. Last year Alison and Peter jointly received the Maureen Wilson Leadership Scholarship which supports conference and/or immersion experiences for outstanding school leaders . All the best to Christie, Shane, Alison and Peter over these next exciting weeks.

Maths Pathways for Years 7 and 8

Maths Pathways is a Maths teaching and learning resource and methodology that allows teachers and students to tailor maths lessons and maths learning pathways to better suit individual student needs. Instead of each student learning the same content at the same time, they will focus on what they are ready to learn and on the next best thing to learn. The approach aligns closely with our recent work to better differentiate and individualise learning. There will be less whole class teaching of the same topic and more small team and individual work on a variety of topics. It is an exciting next step in our work to increase the number of students who are ‘academically stretched’, doing work that is challenging and demanding of full attention and effort, while being achievable.

Thank you and congratulations to the Maths Department staff, under the leadership of Colleen Rainbird and Vicki Kenny, for their enthusiasm in providing our students with extra opportunity, and for the work in training and planning already completed. More information will be given as Maths Pathways is introduced later in Term 3.

Kildare School TV

Many young people, like many adults, are impacted by  multiple stressors in their lives. Sometimes, as a coping mechanism, some young people resort to self-harm, including attempts at suicide.

In this edition of SchoolTV, parents  learn to understand and recognise the warning signs in order to help prevent self-harm happening. The focus should always be on identifying the underlying difficulty the child may be facing and in actively seeking the best preventative measures. You can access this edition of SchoolTV: HERE

All the best for the next month of learning and looking after one another,